


𝐃𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐨 🁡 𝐴 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑑𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑟

by Adrenalineshots, sonshineandshowers, TheFibreWitch



Series: Domino 🁡 [35]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Child Bright, Digital Art, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hallucinations, Harassment, Health Emergency, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Metafiction, Murder Mystery, Nightmares, Surrealism, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator, Video, a lot of really strange stuff that happens in altered states of consciousness, anxiousness, reader-driven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrenalineshots/pseuds/Adrenalineshots, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonshineandshowers/pseuds/sonshineandshowers, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFibreWitch/pseuds/TheFibreWitch
Summary: Selecting 𝐴 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑑𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑟 from the bookshelf, Malcolm travels through his own mind.Read this story at:https://www.thedominostory.com/#a-menina-do-marThis book is one part of the Domino series. If you have not yet read thePrefaceorIntroduction, please head there first.
Relationships: Jessica Whitly/Martin Whitly
Series: Domino 🁡 [35]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926451
Collections: Domino 🁡, Prodigal Son Big Bang 2020 - Saturday Posts





	𝐃𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐨 🁡 𝐴 𝑀𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑑𝑜 𝑀𝑎𝑟

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jameena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/gifts), [MissScorp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/gifts), [ProcrastinatingSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProcrastinatingSab/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Menina do Mar](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/685381) by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. 



> This book is one part of the Domino series. If you have not yet read the [Preface](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497927/chapters/64577434#workskin) or [Introduction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497927/chapters/64588537#workskin), please head there first.
> 
> Betaed by the wonderful [Jameena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jameena/), [MissScorp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/), and [ProcrastinatingSab](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProcrastinatingSab/).
> 
> Credit to the creators and their works that inspired and were referenced in this work:  
>  **— Inspiration:**[A Menina do Mar](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Menina_do_Mar) \- Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen  
>  **— Cover Song:**[Canção do Mar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acZp8cMQ3js) \- Dulce Pontes

[](https://www.thedominostory.com/images/full/a-menina-do-mar.jpg) |   
---|---  
  
When he was four, and younger, Malcolm and his parents used to go to Grandma Milton’s beach house all the time in the summer. Sometimes, daddy had to work and it would be just him and mom.

He loved the house. It wasn’t as big as the place they lived in New York, but he had a room just for himself and a cat to play with. Whiskers, nanna’s old tabby cat, loved to follow him around, rubbing his huge head against Malcolm’s bony knees, almost knocking him over in his eagerness to show affection.

Malcolm’s nose and eyes would be all red from playing with the cat, and mom didn’t really want him getting fur and dirt on his clothes, but Malcolm paid her no attention.

At night, he got to fall asleep listening to the waves outside, dreaming that he was a fish and playing in the ocean. He would dream of giant houses made of coral reefs and colored glass, gardens of tall algae and willow trees. And seahorses. He would be a noble knight for the king fish and a magnificent white seahorse was his stallion, searching the kingdom every night for people and fish to save.

He remembered one night there was a huge storm outside, the wind blowing against the windows as if demanding to get in. Malcolm hid beneath his blankets, his head covered with a pillow to muffle the sound of thunder outside. Only, there was no lightning, just the deafening sound of the giant waves crashing against the shore. That night, he was certain the house was going to wash away into the sea and he would be granted his dream of being a fish.

Mom and nanna had been busy the next day, dealing with the aftermath of the storm. One side of the house had flooded and they had to call a bunch of people to fix it. 

Malcolm was playing in the sand in front of the house when he heard laughter. He looked at the nanny keeping watch over him, trying to see if she had heard it, too. The woman, however, was busy going through her magazine and seemed to not have noticed a thing.

Neither did she notice when Malcolm gave her the slip to search for the origin of the laugh.

He could tell it was a girl. Girls had a sort of clear, light giggle that made them sound like crystal chimes waving in the wind.

He didn’t have to go far to find who was giggling. Behind a tall rock, over the bend of the cliff, he found a girl, sitting in the sand, her back to him. She had bright blond hair and was so small that he could swear she could fit in the palm of his hand.

“Who are you talking to?” he demanded. Mom had told him that grandma owned that stretch of beach, so there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in there. Besides, he had read a book the other day about fairies… and he was pretty certain he had just found one.

The girl and her playmates jumped to their feet in fright. Well, the little girl jumped to her feet. The octopus, the fish, and the crab keeping her company had no feet to get up to. 

He rubbed at his eyes, thinking that perhaps he was still sleeping. Mom said his imagination was too active and that it sometimes took the best out of him.

Once his fingers moved away from his eyes, the image was still the same. The little girl was looking up at him, curiously observing his clothes.

She was dressed, too, but her clothes were made of starfishes and shells of every color in the rainbow. “My friends,” she answered, pointing at the fish, the crab, and the octopus like they were real people. Then again, Malcolm talked to his pet snake, Sybil, all the time.

“You have interesting pets,” he pointed out, crouching down to poke a finger at the gelatinous skin of the octopus. The animal hissed at him, a cloud of black ink filling the air above his head.

“They’re not pets, they are my friends,” the little girl explained, patting down the fish who had raised his fins in the air, like a boxer ready for a fight. “Do you live here?”

Malcolm smiled at her, ready to make a new friend. “In the blue house, around the corner,” he said. “And you? Are your parents around?”

“I live over there.” The little girl pointed, a glint of pure happiness in her eyes. 

Malcolm followed her finger straight to the sea. “That’s the ocean,” he told her, thinking that perhaps she had confused her directions. All the people’s houses were in the opposite direction.

“I know that, silly.” She giggled. “That’s where me and my friends live, the ocean!” 

Malcolm looked at her sand covered tiny toes with a clinical eye. “But you’re not a mermaid.” He pointed to her very human legs. He could swear he heard the crab snigger.

The little girl tilted her head, sand-colored hair falling over her shoulder in waves. Her mischievous eyes, he noticed for the first time, were the color of seaweed when they caught the sun. “No…” she let out slowly, like she was afraid he wouldn’t keep up. “I’m a girl.”

Malcolm shrugged, content with the explanation. He had met other girls, at mom and dad’s parties and when his cousins came to visit, but they had never been his age or as little as this one. He felt like he could stow her in his pocket and take her home with him. Better yet, if she was really telling the truth, maybe he could convince her to take him with her to her home. “Do you really live under the sea?” he asked, mesmerized by the prospect. Sure, he would miss mom and dad, but just to think of the adventures he would have…

“I sure do! I live in the castle and every night me and my siblings, we dance for the Great Stingray, the Queen of the Seas!”

Malcolm’s eyes could have bulged out of his face, for all that the words filled him up with wonder and happiness. “You live in a castle?”

Already, he could imagine himself riding his mighty steed, crossing the gates of the castle, and being greeted by the Queen as he returned victorious from his quests. 

“You don’t?” She seemed fascinated in turn with the existence of someone so different from her.

Malcolm thought about their house in New York with its high tower and all the servants around them. He had started his ballet classes that year, so every night he, too, would dance for his mother to show the moves he had learned that day. In that way, they were similar. “Sort of,” he answered. “I would love to see your world,” he confessed shyly, his hands hidden behind his back so she wouldn’t see how hard he was clasping them.

The little girl looked at him, sizing him up. She pulled at his pant leg, demanding a lift up. Malcolm hurried to accommodate her wishes, offering the palm of his hand. He had been right; she did fit in there. He moved his hand closer to his face and felt her grasp the edge of his ear. “No gills,” she concluded with a hint of sadness in her voice. “Can you breathe underwater?”

Malcolm bit his lip. “I can hold it for a really long time,” he countered, puffing out his chest. “Like... almost a full minute,” he boasted. His swimming teacher said he was a prodigy -whatever that meant.

“That’s not very much, unless you’re a really fast swimmer,” she thought out loud. It was clear she was doing the math in her head. “I guess I could ask the dolphins for a ride…”

Malcolm almost jumped with excitement. Dolphins!

“Malcolm! Where are you?”

The woman’s voice sounded scared. Malcolm shifted between his desire to reassure her that he was okay and going with the little girl from the sea. If he called out to his nanny now, she would never allow him to go!

“Do you know who that is?” the little girl whispered in her ear. She sounded frightened. “Put me down, fast!”

“That’s just my nanny,” he explained, carefully setting her down. As soon as she was within reach, the crab started pulling at her dress, nudging her towards the sea. “She would never hurt you,” he assured her. Them.

The little girl’s eyes were round with wonder. “What is a ‘ _nanny_?’” she asked, fascinated, even as the crab dragged her away.

“She’s someone who watches over you and stops you from doing all the fun things,” Malcolm complained with a pout. Already he could see his chances of seeing that underwater kingdom escape through his fingers like sand.

The little girl giggled again. “She’s your crab,” she explained to him. “I have to go...will I see you again?”

Malcolm nodded with all his might. “Yes! Tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that!”

The little girl giggled again, waving at him as her feet touched the water. “Oh! I don’t know what to call you, boy who lives on the beach?” she voiced, pulling her dress free from the crab’s pincers. 

“I’m Malcolm,” he presented himself, a smile on his lips, happy that he was going to see her again the next day. “Malcolm Whitly...what do I call you, girl who lives in the sea?”

“ _Ainsley_ ,” she called out before diving under the spray.

“There you are!” his nanny voiced, out of breath, her face red from either the sun or running down the length of the beach searching for him. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”

Malcolm shrugged. “Sorry,” he whispered, less than apologetic.

“What were you doing all the way out here, anyway?” she asked, looking around for any suspicious activity. “Never mind, your mother is asking for you. You need to pack your things, right now.”

Malcolm’s whole world crumbled like a sandcastle. “No! Why?”

“It’s not your place to question mommy’s decisions,” she reminded him firmly. “But if you must know, the house needs urgent repairs after last night and we’re all returning to New York today...thank God!” 

His nanny wasn’t the biggest fan of sand. Or the sea. Beaches in general.

Malcolm gazed at the sea, a sad look on his face, thinking that this was the end. He would never see Ainsley again.

A year later, he discovered that he had been wrong.

— ◌◯◌ —

"Your beauty is like the campion, rare and almost never found. The sharpest wit and confidence climbs toward the setting sun. A glimpse, and I am renewed," JT reads from a printout now sitting on top in the case file.

A shiver goes through Dani's spine. "That's creepy as hell."

"There's more of them. Do you want me to keep going, or do you want to bow out?"

Dani appreciates the offer, the same they'd give to anyone on the team, yet she knows she can push forward in this case. She nods.

"The kadupul rides at midnight and disappears before the dawn. Take a glance and perchance you'll find your sweet before she's gone. The darkness won."

"Who?"

"Two different email addresses."

"Hopping?"

"There's more."

"Gonna tell Tally you read me love poems all day," Dani teases overtop of her tea.

JT humphs, not finding that amusing. "A ghost. No leaves, so cannot be free. Cannot explore what could be, what is. Your doorstep. A kiss."

Dani rolls her fingers, indicating he should go on.

"Red, red. Yellow, yellow. Green, green. Three. Three. Parrot." JT gives up and looks up from the folder. "They keep going downhill. Several different email addresses."

"So she blocks one, the person creates another, blocks another..."

"Probably. You know what any of these things are?"

"I've got the parrot down," Dani jokes.

"Can you interpret the rest of that?"

"No idea. Think some drugs might need to be involved for that one. Let’s just get Tech to trace the IP — not worth getting lost in the person's head."

JT keeps flipping through the printouts as if reading them one more time would reveal an answer. Like the words could dance on the page and reassemble, leading them to a warrant.

Dani nibbles her lip between her teeth. “What is it?”

“The same person who wrote these wrote _The Final Tuesday_?” Said like a question, but a statement of fact, really, all signs pointing that way. 

What did Veronica’s final Tuesday look like the prior week? Had Malcolm’s final Tuesday already passed? Dani forces away the thoughts, unable to picture the home aspect of Malcolm’s life. “Multiple sides to anybody,” she tells JT.

Appearance as upstanding editors, now apparently gone rogue if the publisher is to be believed, a systemic issue or cover-up of some sort more likely. Why the publisher insisted Veronica’s death wasn’t natural causes still escapes her — did they not think the NYPD would investigate internally? Were they aware of the content of the emails? The notes? Attempting to cover their asses after failing to take harassment seriously? Involved in her murder? Complicit in ending the editor’s rise in the industry?

Even the note in that book found with Veronica is similar to the others — _Lᴀsᴛ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛs, ᴡɪᴛʜ ʟᴏᴠᴇ, Gᴀʀʏ._ Far less expressive than the prose in the crime novels or printouts in JT’s hands, regardless of how creepy they may be. Someone concealing their style and subsequently revealing themselves at the same time.

Dani looks on to see if JT has anything else to say. “Never mind.” He waves her off. “Get the IP.”

“Yes, boss,” she teases, shaking her head and going back to her computer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Head back to the [Bookshelf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497927/chapters/64588570#workskin) to pick another book. :)


End file.
